ALLEN'S POINT [Editing]

[ 05:00:00 ]

-VI-

-05:00:00-

The clamor of the gamers continued to be audible from the other side. There was a sudden climax of the chaotic screams: the rhapsody of victorious roars and bellows of defeat. An image of Spartans who have set themselves into a bloody brawl had invaded Marvin's mind in a few seconds before the desktop popped up on the monitor. The top of the screen showed the digital counter registering -02 : 59 : 59- with the last two digits blinking and changing as it counted down; reminding Marvin that it's what YOU ONLY HAVE left. Now, Marvin focused on the desktop background. There was an egg-shaped head with two gleaming eyes on the metallic background. He dismissed all the fancy ideas this time. He placed the headphones on and clicked the shortcut icon for the Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos game.

Marvin played forgetting what had happened between him and his mother. He instantly forgot everything as his mind was fixated on the game. It wasn't far from his nightly or day-dreams. The only difference was that his eyes were wide open and he was visibly seeing the virtual world. His hands were working and the sequence of images and events were not just happening inside his mind. And his brain was not the one generating it.

The shouting and screaming of blokes on the other side of the café went on sometimes synchronizing with the music from the headphones but most of the time overruling it. He wasn't much mindful about the noise of the other gamers yet he felt some ecstatic sense of hearing their screams of defeat as he savored his victorious laughs. When he was finally triumphant he decided to rest. The real noises and the ones coming from the headphones converge in such a way that his tired and sleepy mind could no longer decipher which was which. He suddenly felt nervous, he felt the rotation of the world and the beating of his heart as it grew a little hasty. He didn't know for what reason he felt the anxiousness. The feeling was like an itch that his fingers couldn't locate. Marvin thought he was just over-excited or it was just the coldness of the Time Condensing Chamber making his heart beat a little faster to produce heat. But whatever it was, no matter how he tried to shove the morbid fancy, he knew by heart that it was giving him ominous ideas.